


Swap

by wastefulreverie



Series: PhannieMay Shots 2018 [12]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Family, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Parental Bonding, Post Reveal, Post-Canon, Post-Phantom Planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17232869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastefulreverie/pseuds/wastefulreverie
Summary: Needless to say, when it looks like your human form and ghost form are swapping: you panic.





	Swap

Danny had his ghost powers seven years before Phantom slowly started to influence his human appearance.

He knew that at twenty-one years old, it wasn't very common to grow white hair, so when Sam noticed the gradual discoloration in the back of his hair one day, he acted appropriately. He panicked.

Obviously, his first assumption was that he was slowly becoming more and more ghostly, even in his human form. Was he dying? Was he going full ghost? Were his two forms merging?

He wasn't steered off that train of thought for a while, even when Sam reassured him that the tests his parents did on him guaranteed that his core was stable. She also reminded him that the results concluded that Fenton and Phantom would remain two separate forms and that the only way he would become a full ghost would be dying. And then, Sam proceeded to lecture him on the benefits of  _ not _ finishing dying early (mostly because she was worried he'd accidentally go off and die because of his recklessness).

But after that, things only got more confusing when Phantom, started growing black hairs in the same place white-hairs appeared on his human form. It was definitely a lot more visible as Phantom too; black hair on white hair had a lot more contrast than white hair on black. And that meant that it wasn't long before his hair problem started attracting the paparazzi, who normally stayed away from him after the chaos following the Disasteroid crisis... unless there was something concrete brewing in the gossip department.

Suddenly, everyone (including himself) was questioning why Phantom had suddenly grown black hairs, and why Fenton had grown white.

And, he still had no answers.

He finally forced his Mom to do more tests on him to clarify that his ghost side was overcoming his human side, and thankfully, that wasn't the situation. He also wasn't dying, so that was good too.

But it still didn't explain  _ why _ his hair was changing color in both of his forms at a progressively fast rate. After a month after noticing the first few white hairs, the discoloration had reached to the bottoms of his ears. And it didn't look like it was slowly down.

In a hopeless attempt, he tried dying his hair black as Fenton. But, when he transformed into Phantom, nothing had changed with his ghost form. Later that day, he discovered that when he turned back into Fenton, the dye had completely dissipated, only leaving his hair a lot more dry than usual.

He did more tests, only to still have a lack of sensible answers. For Clockwork's sake, he was twenty-one years old and now half of his hair was pure white! Something had to be wrong with him, right? It had to be some kind of error because of his hybrid status. There was no other explanation that he could find appropriate to the circumstances.

By the time his hair had gone white up to his eye level, Danny eventually resigned to his fate and gave up trying to find an explanation. It had been going on for at least eight months, and so far nothing had changed about him besides his hair. Now he would just have to live with the fact that Fenton would have white hair, and Phantom would have black; a basic swap of his two forms. It wasn't preferable, but he supposed it wasn't that big of a change. Thankfully he didn't have a secret identity anymore, because this would've been a  _ horrible _ reveal.

Danny didn't find out the cause behind his hair problem until after the swap had completely settled, a year after the change had started.

In all of his panicking, he'd always confronted his mother about his worries and the prevalent tests on his ghost half. She was better with the biological side, while his dad was always better with the technological aspect. So, somehow, he had simply avoided talking to his dad about it, and Jack had never really pressed the issue concerning Danny's hair (even though it was blatantly obvious). Until one day, Danny learned  _ why _ .

“I assume you knew,” Jack shrugged. “I must have told you at some point, Danno. But my hair turned white starting about my twenties, and so did my dad, and his, and so on. I mean, it didn't happen as rapidly as yours, and I definitely didn't go full white-haired until at least my thirties, but I guess that the ectoplasm in your DNA sped up the rate it happened.”

“Wait, so you had full white hair in your  _ thirties _ ? Your hair is still partially black though!” Danny said.

“That's because I only dye half of it,” Jack explained. “I never really liked the white hair, but I... I always partially dyed my hair black because of what happened to Vladdie all those years ago with his hair. I wanted to not make him feel as isolated. I used to never understand why he didn't dye it, but I suppose from what you've told me, half-ghosts can't really use hair dye, huh?”

“Yeah,” Danny groaned. “It sucks. I just want my hair colors to go back to how they were.”

“Hey,” Jack reassured, “on the bright-side, you still have black hair, just not in human form. You just swapped.”

“Yeah, I guess that's true,” Danny agreed, realization truly sinking in. Suddenly, he looked back at Jack accusingly, “Also, you're stupid for not telling me. It's been a  _ year,  _ Dad.”

Jack had to laugh a little bit. “You never asked!”

“I was so freaked out, it's not funny! Wait a minute...” Danny paused, remembering something else, “does mom not know that you dye your hair?”

“Uh...” he shifted nervously, “can you  _ not _ tell your mother this?”

“ _ Dad _ !”

 


End file.
